SO is it nature or nurture? Are footballers born or made? You look at the Belgium team and they just ... what’s the best word for it? Rippled, maybe?

They had that easy athletic balance about them, a grace, an aesthetic that was a pleasure on the eye.

Envious? Damn straight. It may be one of the seven deadly sins but strike me down with lightning, I don’t care.

If you weren’t green watching the red, gold and black hordes celebrating with their players on Friday night, there’s something wrong with you.

As the Belgians went over to their wedge of Hampden at the end, you could feel a pang, a vague recollection of a bygone emotion we used to feel but you couldn’t quite place it because it was so distant.

So the real question is: Can we be them? The wisdom of the week says no.

That it’s about population and colonial genetics. They’re predisposed to produce athletes we can only dream of.

Sorry, I’m not buying it.

Yes, they’re a BIIIIG side – but football’s not just about physicality. It’s about physical literacy.

And you don’t need to be 6ft5in and built like a house end to have it.

Exhibit A: Gordon Strachan. Five foot hee-haw in his mouldies, yet he was one of the most balanced, admired midfielders of his generation in Europe.

Watch footage of him. Any time he ever gets the ball, he has a yard. An innate ability to create time and space to play in.

Same as the Belgians did at Hampden – and we didn’t.

Why? It’s the wee things – like the one-footed limitations of some of our players.

Steven Whittaker at left-back couldn’t play some of the most obvious balls his team-mates were looking for as they peeled off their men. Every time he had the ball, it was on his right foot, looking inside.

He wouldn’t play the ball up the line and into the channel with his left.

Same with Charlie Mulgrew. Every time he takes the ball, he always wants to shift it on to his left foot. Which is fair enough – it’s a weapon and a half.

But when it’s going hell for leather around you in the middle, that costs split seconds you don’t have at this level.

As a nation the fundamentals of too many of our players are a struggle when they come up against serious quality.

That has zero to do with athletics or genetics. It’s just not embedding the right things into our kids at the right age.

Spain barely have three players over six feet in their starting line-up yet they’re World and European champions.

Or Andy Murray. Pasty and skinny and Scottish as they came as a teenager, yet he has conditioned himself into an elite world performer.

When we drew with Belgium at Hampden in March 2001, there were two places between the sides in the rankings. Now there are 40.

They are a decade into their programme for change.

That’s how long it takes. Look at Greg Dyke this week, setting a target of England winning the World Cup in 2022. A decade.

Time is no guarantee you’ll produce the golden generation Marc Wilmots has at his disposal.

But at least it gives you a fighting chance. We must hope the work at grassroots level and among our elite youth, and our renowned coach